Epilogues
by Nienna's Scriptorium
Summary: Thoroughbred series. Throughout the generations at Whitebrook Farm, some horses fade into the background until they are lost in the stories. Old friends are revisited here in a series of vignettes profiling forgotten champions. COMPLETE.


A/N: I wrote these short vignettes (and they are collectively called "Epilogues" because they are meant to explain what happened to some of the horses that just disappeared at various points in the Thoroughbred series) about a year ago, and since then books have been published in the series that actually make some of my ideas false, because they finally told us, for instance, that Wonder's Legacy was a top stallion at stud in New York. So, some of these are kind of "What if?"s and therefore these should all be taken as AU, or what _could_ have happened. They are what they are.

Disclaimer: All rights to the Thoroughbred series belong to Joanna Campbell and Harper Collins.

**Legacy of the Track**

The horse didn't particularly remember what the girl looked like the last time he saw her. In fact, he was pretty sure he forgot completely what she looked like.

All he remembered was that, when he had lived with her, it was the only time he was ever happy.

Not that she had treated him with particular kindness. He didn't think that she gave him special treats, or refused to let anyone else handle him, for fear of marring one hair on his shining chestnut coat. He didn't remember her sleeping in his stall just to spend a few more times with him. He couldn't remember how many times she had ridden him, if at all. He didn't think she had come to cheer him on at the races.

She didn't like races back then, and so she had left him.

He, of course, being a horse, had never seen his own reflection, but he thought himself quite handsome, and was devastated to ponder the fact that she probably had not thought so, and had dropped him because of it. So, with the other woman, he thought, yes, maybe someone would finally appreciate him for what he was, make much of him, and allow him to show her what he could really do on the track. He was, after all, the son of a queen.

But he didn't think she liked him, either, and that's why she had dropped him, too.

He didn't like to think of that woman at all, but he couldn't keep her image out of his mind. Seeing her every morning, whether he had eaten breakfast or not, running that same oval at the backwater track, of which he had forgotten the smells of sawdust and sweat. Running every morning, dry or muddy, sticky turf, with that big man on top of him, and he wondered why that woman wouldn't just ride him, he would win, and he would be able to run so fast for her then.

He tried for so long, and for so hard, that he lost.

So when he saw the girl, the pretty brown-haired girl on the track, taking a gleaming, hulking chestnut colt for a spin around Keeneland, and he saw her walk past his stall, and he would have pawed the ground to get her attention if it weren't for the osselots and the bone chips and the arthritis, and he recognized her at once and would have whinnied if it weren't for chronic cough and wind problems he had developed, he turned his head away.

She wouldn't want to see him anyway. He was six; he was old and done for.

**Trial and Tribulation**

Baker's Orchard presents Pony Rides. Four turns around the ring, two dollars. Eight turns around the ring, three dollars.

The pony, of course, could not read the sign on which his services were advertised, for if he had been able to, he would have instead written something much more exciting. But he didn't need to be able to read the sign to know exactly where he was.

It was an apple orchard, and a fancy, affluent one to boot. The wealthy parents came with their spoiled children during the months of September, October, November to embrace old times and get in touch with nature again through the family-friendly activity of picking apples by hand. Once they paid for the experience of their own labor, they were free to wander about the quaint establishment, carve a pumpkin for an additional, overpriced charge, or allow their children free rein over the petting zoo. Of course, it became requisite for the demanding children to have a pony ride, and they wanted the big pinto all the time, and so a chubby toddler was plopped on top of his plastic western saddle, smelling of crushed apples and donut crumbs, and he was sent for a shuffle around the tiny dirt paddock.

Not that he gave the children a real ride, but not like he had a choice, either. The man who ran the show would tug roughly on his rope bridle, and the child would eagerly kick at his ribs, and he would amble around the ring attached to a tiny version of a hotwalker. The pony was by far the most popular with the screaming children, due to his flashy good looks, and he therefore worked the same hours as the man, nine to five, every day throughout the season.

He was never too tired or too afraid to give a kid a decent ride, though in the back of his memory he recalled one day when the little gray Shetland usually stationed next to him had quit walking and fallen in his ties. Little Fuzz, as he was known, lay still on the dusty ground, a gash across his right fore from heaven-knows-where, and his thirty-year-old eyes half closed. He made no sound ever again, except for the labored breathing that was silenced by a last injection from the local vet. Luckily, only a few parents that day had tearfully witnessed the event, and it was raining at lunchtime on a weekday. By the weekend, the pony ride business was back up to its usual feverish pace.

He minded giving rides less than the end of the season, when he was shipped off to an old woman's crowded paddock, where he starved for a winter before returning to work in the spring. He spent that off season in a daze, recalling a faraway pasture, filled with bluegrass and trail riding with a lovely little blonde girl, who was willing to jump anything that he could.

"Go on, Spot," growled the man, giving him a poke in the hindquarters with a stick. The big pony walked onward.

**Glory Be**

The first of November saw the first dusting of frost on the dirt of the Whitebrook training track. After the Indian summer, followed by a warm seasonal transition, Ashleigh Griffen was pleasantly surprised by the sound of the turf beneath the horses' hooves.

As she led out the first string for their early morning workouts, Ashleigh let out a contented sigh and watched her breath form a tiny cloud, in suspension for a split-second before it disappeared. Although the approach of winter meant she had a limited amount of time before the frozen ground would cancel workouts, the first frost meant that the humidity of the Kentucky summer was over. The crackle of crisp morning air leant excitement to the riders as they prepared the horses for end-of-the-year championships, and extra spirit to the steps of the racers themselves.

Ashleigh leaned on the rail, calling out instruction to the three milling horses in front of her, then allowed her gaze to settle on one horse already galloping in-hand. The powerful gray colt ate up the track, seeming not to take a breath during his work, all the while in the complete control of Christina Reese. Within two weeks, the pair would be leaving for the popular racing season at Santa Anita Park in California, where the Breeders' Cup-winning two year-old would solidify his position as the top colt of the year. Ashleigh smiled as they finished their workout. There was something about this horse, plucked from obscurity at a bankruptcy auction, that gave him an unparalleled turn-of-foot. The new November air seemed to breathe maturity into the horse, and Ashleigh was about to say as much to the approaching figure of her husband when she was stopped by the look on his face.

"You need to come to the back paddock, Ash."

They knelt in the grass next to the body. Ashleigh had one hand on the horse's cheek, turned white with age, and Mike took her hand in his own. "George and I think he died sometime yesterday evening. Just, you know, fell asleep in the grass."

She took her other hand and reached for the horse's white mane. The layer of dew cracked between her fingers.

"But it was like I saw him just this morning… the way he used to run, like he didn't know that he could be beaten. Wonder, Pride, and now him. For him to die at night, in the cold, all alone… and I saw him this morning. I didn't even think about it then, but Blues Ridge looked just like Glory out there. I saw him for the last time this morning, and I didn't even know it."

**Silver and Gold**

The colt was an hour old, standing up and trotting about the big box stall like he had been there for ages. At the early hour of four in the morning he had been born, and even now the only light that shone on his burnished bay coat was whatever came from the 60-watt bulb hanging from the rafters.

The gray mare, his mother, was on the other hand stock-still, perhaps from the exhaustion of giving birth to a large, spindly-legged creature. Her black tail, streaked with the silver strands of age, seemed, however, to have a mind of its own. Every time her foal trotted near her, her tail swished and brushed at his flanks, like long, tender fingers gently stroking his fur.

Samantha McLean and the girl next to her both sighed at the same time to see the successful birth of another generation at Whisperwood Stables. They watched the peaceful pair for another moment in silence from their vantage over the bottom half of the stall door, and it was as if the horses never knew they were there.

"I'm so proud of her," said Sam, keeping her eyes on the horses all the while. She watched the mare flick her ears and raise her head at hearing her name, but she did not move otherwise. "Her first foal, delivered without a hitch, and a big fellow, too!"

The colt was still prancing through the deep hay, when he took a tumble and landed in the soft straw. The mare jumped in place and backed toward the corner until her hindquarters brushed the wood of the walls. Then she seemed to relax again, and dropped her head to sniff toward her baby. The foal was already up again, and coming back to nurse.

"I don't think she'll miss the show ring one bit, now. She's got such an important job to do."

The girl nodded, and swallowed hard. "Oh, Sam, I'm so sorry. If only I had worked more on strides between fences, she wouldn't have taken the water jump like that…"

"Don't even think about it," Samantha interrupted, firmly, but not unkindly. "What happened, happened. We would never turn out such a wonderful mare. I know you think it's such a bad thing, but we don't just forget about our horses when they don't measure up to our wishes. And a Finn McCool colt, to take up where she left off. How would you like to take him there?"

The girl smiled, and her worry was gone at Samantha's soothing words. "It'll be years before he's ready, but even then I'll be old enough for the Olympics. I won't forget Sterling, though. Without her I wouldn't be where I am in eventing."

Samantha smiled with her. "The shame in the matter is that she'll never be able to see her beautiful babies. That's the only pity with a blind mare."

Final A/N: The horses I wrote about, in case it was difficult to tell, are Wonder's Legacy, Tribulation, March to Glory, and Sterling Dream.


End file.
